How to Decide Which Social Media Platforms are Best for Your Brand (and some free tools)

It’s officially the month of Tool Time. Some people call it November. Whatever. No need to get technical.

During Tool Time I will be sharing several items that you lovely people asked about over on Facebook as well as 10+ of my favorite tools to run my business (such as tools for online courses, invoicing, contracts, business management, scheduling, editorial planning, and more). Best part about Tool Time? (I mean, other than the fact that it was Tim Taylor’s popular show on Tim Allen’s popular show—someone got that, I can feel it.) Each of these posts comes with some type of freebie or giveaway and what I hope will be actionable information for you.

One of the main things that you expressed interest in was social media management, promotion, and best practices. I want to start off the month of Tool Time with some questions (you can ask yourself) and a few tools to help you decide which social media platforms are best for you and your brand, along with ways to use each platform. That way, as we go through some of this month’s topics, we can all have some next level social media clarity.

Not every social media platform is a great investment of your time. Especially when you consider where your audience is, how they use each platform, your own brand culture, and the available time you have to maintain each account. I’m going to share some notes on what the main platforms are generally used for, then I’m going to share 15 questions you can ask yourself for each platform, and a few pages you can download and take notes on if you decide to answer some of these questions, audit your use of the platforms below, and figure out what you’ll share on each platform going forward.

TWITTER
Your place to post text messages the whole world can see. Use it to share useful information, jokes, timely updates, anecdotes, quotes, inspiration, previews of blog posts, and your stunning personality. Engage in real conversations frequently on Twitter. Use Twitter for research (http://search.twitter.com), Twitter chats, and the power of lists (organizing connections into useful categories).

PINTEREST
Your place to post everything visual that you want your followers to check out. Even if it’s information and not an image, you can make a beautiful image that goes with the information.

FACEBOOK
Your platform for connecting with people 25 or older. A great place to share visuals, links to useful information, promotions, and inspiration. Facebook has an affordable ad program that can help you target readers with specific interests.

INSTAGRAM
Your place to share compelling, interesting, fun, meaningful, helpful, and inspirational photos and videos. Instagram is a great place to display some of your portfolio items and your behind-the-scenes processes and life. It is best used in a very interactive manner (leaving comments and responses often).

LINKEDIN
Your place to show your professional side, diverse capabilities and skills, and ability to provide useful information. LinkedIn is a great place to make connections for collaborations and to find talented individuals you might hire in the future.

YOUTUBE
Your place to share tutorials, product reviews, trainings, and your winning personality. If used, YouTube is best used consistently and strategically.

Questions to Ask Yourself About Each Platform

I’ll use Twitter below as an example, but keep in mind that the #AdultHomework at the bottom of this post has a page for each platform. You can download the PDF and then print out sheets for the specific platforms you’re interested in thinking through. Here are the 15 questions I recommend asking:

1. How much of my audience is on Twitter? Estimate the % of your total audience.

2. What does my audience use it for? Give the top 3 – 5 uses.

3. Do I have content I can share that will match what my audience uses it for? If so, what?

4. What types of content will I share on Twitter in general?

5. How can I make my Twitter presence slightly/majorly different from other creators in my space?

6. How will my images look when I share products? blog posts? quotes? Perhaps make samples or templates for these w/ your computer, or sketch them out.

7. How often do I need to post original + useful content on Twitter to make it effective for me?

8. How often do I need to interact on Twitter to make meaningful connections with my audience?

9. What benefits outside of website traffic and product purchases does Twitter bring for my brand?

10. Is the time commitment required to make Twitter effective a good investment based on the benefits?

11. How can I use Twitter for research and to find out what my audience wants/needs/likes? Hint: Use the search feature often, search for popular hashtags regularly along with key phrases your audience might use, and join Twitter chats or meetings about certain topics.

Suné, thank you for stopping by. And thanks for being excited about Tool Time. I’m with you on G+. It’s actually so powerful and I’m just beginning to understand even 2% of it’s potential. It’s definitely a useful platform that I’m happy to be exploring now.

So timely ! Today, I started my #bloggingStartDoing challenge where I’ll try to do one thing each day for 30 days that I read about either on our blog or on other great resources (but mostly here really 😉 and my first task was precisely to refine my content strategy in terms of what will go where !

Stephanie, your challenge sounds excellent. It’s so simple to over-read and under-do in life, especially for natural learners—people who actually enjoy research and discovery. I’m with you on that. Thank you for taking the time to stop by and to let us know about #BloggingSartDoing. I appreciate it.

Darlyn, your Instagram is already filled with such great stuff, I love it. I’m glad the post gives you some ideas though; thank you for saying that. I appreciate that you took some time to stop by. I’m excited about your blog launch as well. Wishing you success with it.

You always seem to write about exactly what I’m focusing on. 🙂 When I click on the image that says a “page for each platform” it just pulls up that image. Am I missing a link somewhere? I’d love to print these off.

I’m with Kimberly – it’s like you hear me talking to myself! (Oh, and I also get the lightbox when I click on the “page for each platform” image. Sad face.) A was just participating in a discussion on this exact topic with some friends over on Etsy, so I naturally sent them here.

I really, really appreciate your point #10! You know I love me some ROI. Um, if you’re taking requests, Ms. DJ, would you please play more songs about points 9 and 11?

Ugh, I really need to get my Instagram account in line. As a designer, I could be sharing my work and making connections with people who are inspired by the same things… but for some reason I always forget about Instagram.

Margo, I so, so, truly get this. I left Instagram alone (even though I had an account) for months. Now it is one of my favorite platforms. I love it because it allows for different things than you might do anywhere else. It’s much more “in process” and portfolio-ing. I do think it is perfect for you. As you know, I love your work.

Regina you seem to have the pulse of exactly what is going through my mind, [btw, you had me rolling with the Tim/Tim comment above, I must have been the one you were speaking of cause ‘I got it’] The only one I am not on is instagram and I am lost in how to use each of them effectively and NOT suck up my time [I don’t get that]. I will be reviewing these questions, answering and studying what I feel is the most effective. My blog & website are not going away and I think when it’s all said and done ‘pinterest’ will end up being my hangout, but we’ll see what this reveals to me. It’s time to make some decisions and move on. Thanks again for your fabulous insight, I always learn something here.

Teri, thank you so much for your comment, and not only because you validated my Home Improvements reference. I appreciate that you took time today to read this and to add your thoughts.

I love Instagram as a portfolio + connection platform for anyone who has products, product tutorials (like yours), or services that translate well into images. However, sometimes it’s better to just focus on two or three places that really work well for your brand (perhaps Pinterest, Facebook, and Google+ or maybe Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube–for video tutorials) and only expand into the others when you have the time, but you may find you never need to.

So his brand is wayyyy different from yours, but I love what FitMenCook does with Instagram (if you do consider it). He speeds up his cooking tutorials and talks over them in order to show people healthy food prep in 15 seconds. If you got on, perhaps you could consider showing techniques or tools with your videos. If you decide against Instagram than Pinterest and YouTube would still be excellent places for these same tutorials.

Pinterest is a #1 traffic driver for many bloggers so I wouldn’t be surprised if that does indeed become your hangout Teri.

Okay, sorry for my lengthy comment. Must stop before I ramble off a mini eBook on all of this. Thank you for your sweet compliment; I’m so happy you gain something from spending time with me here.

Well then let the mini e-book begin…I would be glad to be your study subject. I fully believe there are many that share in the same struggles, hence the value of this particular article to me personally.

Which one best serves my vision all while not becoming entranced with the new shiny toys [i.e. known as social hangouts], remain focused and filter the noise on these sites [not sucking up my time].

Focus, I suppose is what separates the women from the girls. But I say as a woman we are natural social creatures and want to be where the activity is…there is the dilemma, which social media will capture us and keep us? oops sorry did I go astray here and are we now into the second mini e-book?

Well that is what I struggle with, which will serve my business most effectively moving me forward vs. standing still with distractions interfering in my production.

I definitely agree that I need to narrow to just 2 or 3 but….they all have their own temptations in their own right. I find each one utterly charming and engaging.

I am a visual person and producing visual product I need a visual platform to promote. That is very clear to me, pinterest and youtube are my front runners for sure.

I can see the appeal to instagram and could easily see myself there. At this point I don’t want the added temptation for further distraction. Perhaps down the road once I get my footing and feel strong enough to venture out without the distraction of a ‘new’ social site will create.

Okay I’ll stop for now. Thanks for this invigorating discussion and allowing me to work through my thought process. Let me know when the e-book is ready for viewing. I’ll be first in line…Cheers.

You are awesome Regina! i am about to launch my new blog and you have been a great inspiration and soo helpful during the design/plan process. I had not even tought about planning my content and now I have a month’s worth of posts already written before I even launch hahaha. Thank you so much <3

This is great, I really need to narrow it down. I’m on each of the sites listed, but most of my traffic comes from facebook and youtube with pinterest and ravelry.com as runners up.
All of my videos on youtube are super old, so I’ve been considering revisiting that social platform with something that fits with my life schedule.

Hi Regina:
Thanks for this helpful post ♥! Lately I’ve been struggling a lot thinking if I Should keep using my facebook page or not; I only use it to post blog updates… I don’t even use my personal account too much 😛
Speaking of Twitter, I’ve been trying to learn how to use it to connect with more people. I think I’m going to give it a try to those Twitter chats 😀

Great article and great timing. Twitter has always confused me, but I’m determined to learn to use it along with Google+. I love Pinterest and Instagram. I’m avoiding creating a Facebook page. I’ve had one before where I was sharing positive quotes. I had over a thousand followers. I would get maybe 3 likes on a quote. Soon as I shared a pic of a cat, instantly 50 likes. I’m definitely going to be working through these questions. Thanks so much.

Regina! I found your site via the bschool facebook group feed and you got me straight trippin’ (in the best way possible). I love everything you’re doing here. I’m going through a rebrand/clarification/trying to get my biz ish together right now and I know I’ll be visiting your site frequently for all the resources you have. I’ve only been at this for 7 months so there is still hope for me lol. Keep up the great work!

Just wanted to let you know that I found your blog yesterday and have been hooked. I’ve read every post in less than 24 hours. I also wrote out an entire blog plan for the blog I am currently building, and it has been insanely helpful. You’re doing a great job here and I just wanted to stop by and let you know! 🙂

Excellent breakdown of the different targets and uses for these SM accounts. I have a few clients that I’m forwarding this to as we speak, but more importantly, I’m filtering what I do through this too. Great info that I will keep coming back to Reg…as usual!

Thank you Regina for such an insightful post. Your questions are spot on and made me think a lot about my different social channels and the actual value derived from them. My favourite is Pinterest and conveniently this drives the most traffic to my blog and I’m keen to give up on FB as I get such limited interactions on there but despite this it’s still a good traffic driver. Will be mulling over this for sure – agree it is so much better to focus on doing a couple of channels REALLY well than trying to a mediocre job across all of them.

I am needing to really focus this week on determining what it will be that I share on each platform as I transition to the new site. I was holding myself up by focusing too much on the “how will it LOOK” instead of focusing on what the CONTENT would be.

Shutting down tabs and deleting distractions and doing that NOW. Thank you!

Great post Regina! As always, I am a fan of your blog and content! In addition to picking a social platform that best fit your need, you want a great social media management tool that allows you to post and monitor to all your social accounts from one place. It truly saves soo much time! Keep up the great content Regina!

[…] topics? Is this your first blog? Do you have a mission statement? 2. How often should you post? 3. What social media outlets do you want to focus on? Twitter? Pinterest? Instagram? 4. Do you want to connect with other bloggers? Collaborate. 5. Do […]

Regina,
This post came right on time for me. I published my 1st post today and set up my social media. And now I feel like “now what?” I have used social media personally but I want a different spin with my blog. I will use these tools tonight!

[…] where you can be most effective for your brand. Try the free worksheets and questions in my post HOW TO DECIDE WHICH SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS ARE BEST FOR YOUR BRAND as a starting point to narrow down what’s […]

Thank you so much for this. I am just starting with my blog and am soaking every bit of information I can get my hands on. But I guess you have a point, sometimes I tend to over-read… but now (thanks to you <3) I know how to get started and to rock social media.
Thanks again.
x Mona

Reading this blog and others has given me a new sense of clarity for my blog and my content. One day I will meet you in person and thank you for being my aspirin and relieving my headache of blog planning.

YOU ARE MY GO TO ONLINE GURU! You are the greatest! So much useful content and printables… This site is a motivation for me to get up off of my ‘do nothing’ and blog like I’m supposed to! Thanks from the bottom of my bloggin’ heart!

Facebook is a a great platform to target people age 25 or older, like you said. But many businesses don’t know how to sell through Facebook. Facebook is a predominant social platform, not a selling platform. They need to blend selling+education+entertainment to gather fans, increase engagements, and increase sales.

[…] How to Decide Which Social Media Platform to Use: by Regina – Regina runs through each social media platform and explains what types of content perform best on there. She also gives you a list of questions to ask yourself so that you can narrow down which social media platforms would help your marketing the most. […]

I’m impressed, I must say. Rarely do I come across a
blog that’s both equally educative and entertaining, and without a doubt, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
The issue is an issue that too few men and women are speaking
intelligently about. Now i’m very happy I stumbled across this in my hunt for something
regarding this.

Thank you, I’m definitely on way too many platforms but don’t really have a presence anywhere. I knew I needed to focus on something instead of just posting the same thing everywhere. I just didn’t know what that should be but this really helps!

[…] platforms she talks about….along with what to avoid on each one. This information is gold. How to Decide Which Social Media Platform to Use: by Regina – Regina runs through each social media platform and explains what types of […]

Hey 👋🏽. I’m Regina, and you are in the right place if . . .

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